A Rock And A Soft Place
by FirstDraft
Summary: John and Anna's separation takes them on different emotional journeys but the destination is the same... Chapter 1 of 2


**SPOILERS FOR ALL SERIES 2. Especially the last episode.**

_I have been incredibly frustrated with this series and the storyline that was spun for John and Anna. But there were a few things that did please me about the last episode, and I'm not even talking about that bit in the four-poster bed. Namely, I thought it was nice to see John _smile_ for once, and it made me wonder whether he might have had an epiphany following their wedding. And then I thought – wouldn't it be nice if he was a rock for Anna for once, too? Time for a bit of role-reversal. Anna deserves some looking after._

_Have written and posted this very quickly so apologies for any typos. Doesn't help it's making me post with my eyes closed. Also – _zero_ clue about prison practices in the early 1920s._

_Warning: no plot. Verbal and emotional diarrhoea. I really can prattle on._

xxxXXXxxx

There were times when John Bates thought he was the only one who ever smiled in this prison, and about two month into his stay, it got him into trouble with a squat, ferocious man with a talent for fastening bits of broken glass to bits of broken combs. Fortunately for John, this man had little more than ferocity and makeshift blades to his list of talents. His first swipe caught John on the forearm but not entirely by surprise, and it wasn't hard for John to disarm him after that. In another life, he would have taken advantage of the audience they had to cut him in turn, to send a message to the others, but he had too much to lose this time: he was still waiting for his trial, after all, and it wouldn't do to give the impression Vera had portrayed him accurately in that last poisonous letter. So instead he squeezed hard on the man's windpipe – easy to do as he had him in a headlock – until a few others started to look sufficiently alarmed. That done, he dropped him and put his jacket back on to hide his injury from the guards that had come running around the corner at the sound of the commotion.

Once they were done asserting that no one was dead or dying, they left again, and another prisoner came up to John. "He's got a point, though," he said, indicating the groggy man still coughing and retching in a corner. "You here for murder, ain't you? That's the gallows. So what have you got to smile about?"

"I didn't do it," John replied firmly.

"What's that got to do with it?" That was true, John conceded. But as the question made him think about the reason for his smiling, he couldn't help himself. "Jesus bleedin' Christ," his companion muttered, disgusted. "There you go again. You must be mad."

Later, in the dark of his cell, he thought about it again. No, he wasn't mad. He was married to Anna Smith, that's all, and every time he thought about her – and that was many, many times a day – he couldn't help but smile. It'd taken him by surprise at first: his prospects were as bleak as his fellow prisoner had described them. But he had as much luck on his side as one could in a situation like this. First, Lord Grantham had made sure he was held in a better, safer jail than most. Some people might have thought that being attacked that very afternoon in the way he had been didn't make for a safe place to be, but John had been in jail before and he could certainly tell the difference. That was his second stroke of luck, although he would never have thought before that he would call two years in prison such a thing. But there it was: he hadn't forgotten what it was like and it helped.

Mostly, he was married to Anna Smith. He remembered something then, an old memory from his time in South Africa, when he and other soldiers had spent the first half hour at the end of a long, exhausting march complaining about the long, exhausting march, and how much worse their commanding officer, Major Crawley, was making the whole ordeal. Because he seemed to smile at the oddest moments, including the end of a long, exhausting march. John understood now.

He hadn't realised until their wedding how much he had held back from Anna. Not just from her but from himself, too. In his early weeks in jail, he had tried to go back to those times, so afraid that thinking about what he'd left behind would make what he was facing impossible to bear. It hadn't worked, of course, and every day and every night despair bit and gnawed at him a little more until one night, nearly a month after his arrest, the roughness of his blanket and the cold in his cell had made him think about soft sheets and warm skin and he hadn't been able to stop himself. He'd remembered everything: the look in her eyes when they had been pronounced man and wife, how he had felt a joy unlike anything he'd ever felt before; later, the smell of her hair. The feel of her pulse on his lips where he kissed her throat. Of her fingers on his back…

It was as though a door had been wrenched open and light had flooded over an ancient darkness. Falling in love with Anna had changed John's life a long time ago and he hadn't expected their getting married to change him any further but he'd been wrong, like he had been wrong about so many other things. The boundaries he'd set between them, the distance he had kept from her at times – he'd always thought they were practical, necessary things to minimise hurting or disappointing her, to do what was right and honourable, which was the least he owed her. Now he knew that much of it had been to protect his own heart because when he'd done as Anna asked at last and gone to the Registrar's Office, it had felt like a surrender, like he'd let something go he hadn't known he'd been carrying. It must have been fear: he had felt so free afterwards. That moment on his prison bed had been the same experience all over again and he berated himself for letting himself fear once more.

_I know only that I'm finally who I was meant to be._

That was how John had come to feel, too. How, then, could he feel anything but free and happy and luckier than most men? Anna had always been wiser than her years, and his own, too. This was another item to add to the long list of things she'd been right about. His only regret was that they'd waited so long. He supposed some of the wait had been inevitable; while he no longer felt any scruples at the thought of their being only lovers – adulterous lovers at that – a pregnancy would in all likelihood have cost them everything, no matter how adored the child would have been. Would his mother have helped them? She had always been very religious and sensitive about how the world thought of her and her family; growing up poor and in Ireland, it was almost inevitable. Less inevitable, perhaps, was the fact that it'd given her a keen sense of compassion. She'd liked Anna and certainly hadn't discouraged their relationship. He had felt so much gratitude and pride at this realisation – that his mother would trust him to do the right thing when he had done so many wrongs before. Perhaps that had been another fear that had held him back: the fear of disappointing her again. And yet… now he felt ready to give up any or all of his pride and honour if it meant being with Anna. There was just nothing about being with her that was or felt wrong.

Not that he'd stopped worrying altogether. Every piece of correspondence or visit he received from his lawyer reminded him of the seriousness of his predicament. No part of him wanted to die and certainly not by hanging, but he worried most about Anna. And when he worried about her, death seemed preferable to a jail sentence likely to be for life. If they were to be separated forever either way, it had to be easier than being reminded with every letter or visit of what they could not have. It was easy for him to say, of course: he wouldn't be the one left behind. But he could tell from her letters how hard it already was for her. In the dark he felt for the place in his mattress where he kept them at night, suddenly longing for a glimpse of her. Mostly they told him of life at Downton, of news to do with his case and what the Crawleys might be doing to help, and always ended with memories of times they'd shared together, with words of love and devotion and fortitude. Still he could tell that something was wrong. He could not quite explain how or why, except to say he knew Anna and she wasn't entirely…there. In his own letters to her he tried his best to reassure her but he always stopped short of telling her how he felt. It wasn't just that some habits died hard: he'd never been all that good at expressing himself on paper, or otherwise, really. There were things you just had to say face to face.

And in only three days she would be here. Having been taken back to London, it was the first time they would see each other since his arrest; Lord Grantham was coming as well, and his lawyer. A good thing, too – they were more likely to be granted privacy that way. Somehow he would have to find a way to be alone with her. For once, he was quite prepared to ask for help. The only thing he had pride in these days was in being married to Anna Smith.

Anna_ Bates._

John smiled.


End file.
